Bob Perry transformed Texas politics

Updated 6:56 am, Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Bob Perry let his checkbook do the talking for him.

Quiet and unassuming — the archetype of the old-fashioned Southern gentleman — Perry, who died Saturday night at age 80, transformed politics in Texas and the rest of the United States with his big-dollar contributions to conservative causes.

For three decades the Houston homebuilder was the primary financier of conservative political campaigns and anti-trial-lawyer policy crusades that paved the way to Republican hegemony in Texas.

Over the past decade, he became one of three aging billionaires who pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative groups such as Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and Crossroads GPS that have altered the American political landscape, as well.

“Any honest list of the Top 10 people most responsible for Texas becoming, and remaining, such a reliably Republican state would have to include Bob Perry,” said Democratic consultant Harold Cook. “Indeed, he'd probably make the Top 5.”

In all, the Houston homebuilder invested more than $53 million into political causes — with more than half of it coming in the past six years when U.S. Supreme Court rulings opened the door to unlimited spending by Super PACs, the shadow campaign organizations that shaped the presidential campaign agenda in 2012.

With his political generosity, Perry cast a giant shadow over Texas politics. He was an early and enthusiastic backer of George W. Bush's campaigns for governor and president. He bankrolled Rick Perry's races for governor and president.

Over the past four years, he has been the top individual donor to every Republican statewide elected official, as well as Texas House Speaker Joe Straus. And in what may have been his last large contribution, he gave George P. Bush, the former president's nephew, $45,000 for his 2014 race for Texas Land Commissioner.

T. Boone Pickens, the Dallas energy magnate who teamed up with Perry on the Swiftboat campaign, said Perry “will be an inspiration for future generations in business and in politics.”

“Bob Perry was a patriot who loved America and put serious money up to make it better,” said Pickens.

Perry was at the center of some of the pivotal Texas political fights when Republicans gained and consolidated power in Austin. He was a major contributor to efforts to purge the Texas Supreme Court of trial-lawyer dominance, beating five of six targeted Democrats in 1988.

He helped George W. Bush vanquish Democratic Gov. Ann Richards after a single term in 1994. He also was a major donor to the 1998 Republican ticket, which swept Texas statewide races for the first time in history.

“He was indispensable,” said Austin political consultant Bill Miller, who once served as Perry's spokesman. “The Republican Party would have taken longer to get control, the control would not have been as strong and the duration would have been shorter.”

Perry also threw his political power behind the tort reform effort in Texas. John Colyandro, executive director of the Texas Conservative Coalition, said Perry deserves some credit for the state's economic prosperity as well as its Republican dominance.

Perry also watched out for his own business interests. He backed the 2003 creation of the Texas Residential Construction Commission, designed to keep fights between homebuyers and their builders out of courts.

Gov. Rick Perry, who is not related to his donor, named homebuilder Perry's general counsel, who had assisted in drafting the legislation creating the new agency, to the TRCC board. Consumer complaints prompted the Texas Legislature to let the agency go out of business in 2009 when it came under sunset review.

“He believed that lawsuit abuse needed to be curbed, and he believed in smaller government,” said Cindy Rugeley, a political scientist at Texas Tech University. “He also believed in equal opportunity and affirmative action. He gave money to people or campaigns that he believed in.”

Atop that list was Karl Rove, who was a young Austin political consultant for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Clements when he met Perry and cemented political bonds that lasted for three decades.

Perry was a backer of conservative Democratic Gov. Dolph Briscoe in 1978 against his more liberal challenger, Attorney General John Hill. When Hill defeated Briscoe in the Democratic primary, Perry switched to Republican nominee Clements, the beginning of an enduring relationship with Rove and Texas Republicans.

“If Karl Rove provided the strategy and tactics for turning Texas 'red,' Bob Perry provided much of the financing for that project,” said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson.

In 2004, Perry helped launch Swiftboat Veterans for Truth by donating $4.4 million at the urging of a Houston lawyer, John O'Neill, co-author of “Unfit for Command,” a searing indictment of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's service on a Navy Swiftboat during the Vietnam War. Jillson said the ad campaign “helped sink John Kerry.”

Despite his huge role in American politics, Perry gave almost no interviews and rarely made public appearances.

With his passing, his widow, Doylene, will decide if she wants to continue the massive contributions.